I found it really distressing to listen to the radio report about the teacher who sexually abused children in his primary school class. Nigel Leat, who taught at Hillside first school in Worle, Somerset, was jailed indefinitely last year after admitting 36 sexual offences including attempted rape, sexual assault and voyeurism.

Any parent listening to the report will have felt the same sadness for the children and their families and frustration that people didn't act when they had concerns. I feel sorry for the teachers he worked with as they now have to live with the knowledge of what happened and I hope they are getting the support they need.

But the question has to be asked, why, after numerous concerns had been raised, nobody took any action until a child spoke out and was believed by her mother. We know sexual abuse is often conducted by people known and trusted by children – why then did fellow teachers not act when pupils expressed concern?

It is obviously a failure of leadership, fear of false accusation and the repercussions that brings and it is still the disbelief that we all share that something so awful is happening.

I remember one of my cases, two children, aged 3 and 4, had been abused by their father. Thank goodness for the brave grandmother who told me as soon as she had concerns, but colleagues needed convincing that children so young had suffered as they had.

That was in the early 80s and we are now much more aware and understand our responsibilities but even so in a recent report on safeguarding children a group of trusted, trained professionals did not feel able to speak out about what they saw.

I am not castigating them, just trying to think what stopped them asking the children if anything was wrong. Is it because we still don't want to believe such things happen or is it because we have stopped believing that children will tell us the truth?

There has been much demonising of children and it would be very sad if we would doubt the honesty of such young children in this situation but if anyone had asked them, others would not have been abused.

Knowing when to be brave and do the right thing is hard – especially when we know what the implications are for people if we get it wrong – but staying silent and not saying what we think can bring more misery and to those more vulnerable.

As reported instances jump 22%, local authorities have a big task – from ensuring a collaborative system operates so signs of abuse are spotted to providing 'safe houses' and counselling. Ben Cook reports